


Don't Sweat the Technique

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Character studies, Kylex, M/M, Malex, and being idiot boys, boys growing up together, fuckit, ish, kind of a coda, malex implied heavily, maybe just a scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: Kyle and Alex used to be friends.“I swear to God if you apologize again I’m going to beat you with my prosthetic.”





	Don't Sweat the Technique

Alex was able to fall asleep anywhere and Kyle was irrationally jealous of that talent. He watched the way Alex’s head was tipped back against the cement wall, hair caught a little on the grain, mouth soft and open on easy even breaths. It was cold in the cell, but dry. The New Mexico dust settled into the corners around the smell of age. Kyle restrained the urge to reach over and shove Alex with his foot and instead let out a loud sigh, pushing to pace the narrow space again. Caulfield Prison was supposed to be abandoned. It was supposed to be set for demolition sometime in 2021, but here they were -locked into a cage while Alex’s older brother sat outside the far doors. There wasn’t even a window to give him some way to gauge the time of day. He was still smarting at the way Flint Manes had taken his watch. He kept shaking his wrist to check the time only to see the paler line of skin and being angry all over again.

“Still locked,” Alex said, not even opening his eyes despite the way Kyle startled hard and glared at him.

“Jesus, Manes,” Kyle grumbled, mouth flattening as he curled his fingers into the chain link and tugged. Alex didn’t open his eyes, just a long line of perfectly calm and it grated on Kyle’s nerves. “Either be asleep or not asleep. Make a choice, bro.”

Alex smiled first and then slitted his eyes open, fingers still laced in his lap. “You still trying to pretend like you don’t have anxiety?”

“I was a hyper kid,” Kyle replied, turning back to trace the edge of the cage door, feeling the way the bolts had been welded to the metal.

“You were a dick,” Alex corrected, eyebrows flicking up like punctuation as he tilted his head on a softer smile to soothe the insult. “But you’re getting better.”

“Good to know.” He didn’t try to deny it, knowing full well what an ass he’d been in high school. He knew he was being an ass even when he’d been pushing and prying at Alex, picking at the fraying edges of someone who was already unraveling. It was cruel, but it had made him feel in control. It had made him feel powerful. He opened his mouth, closing it again just as quickly before opening it again- words thick on his tongue.

“I swear to God if you apologize again I’m going to beat you with my prosthetic.”

Kyle startled back, a laugh coughing out of him as he turned back to where Alex still hadn’t moved and was perfectly content in his rumpled jeans, jacket folded up underneath him. “I am both disgusted and impressed?”

“So, it’s a Tuesday?” Alex wet his lips, biting at his bottom before tossing him a look across the space and Kyle couldn’t help but start laughing softly.

“You’re doing that plucky thing right now, aren’t you?” Kyle crossed his arms over his chest, rolling his shoulders. “That… I’m going to make the panicky person laugh so they stop panicking?”

“That makes me the hero in this situation,” Alex replied, voice warm around a grin. “Unexpected, but I’ll take it.”

Kyle waved a hand at him, cutting up and down to encompass the entirety of Alex Manes in this cell, calm and collected while just watching Kyle literally climb the walls. “Of the two of us, I think I’d prefer the military veteran to be the hero, okay? I went to Med school.”

“Damnit, Alex, I’m a Doctor not an Combat Engineer,” Alex mumbled and Kyle started laughing. It might have been a little hysterical, a little tinged with a desperate sort of panic, but he was laughing. He let go of the chain link and sighed, rubbing his hand over his hair before throwing himself down next to Alex. He pulled his knees up, draping his forearms over his knees and stared ahead. Manes still smelled like Old Spice and Kyle ducked his head, touching his thumbs together as he took a long slow breath.

He’d given Alex a stick of deodorant the year they built the tree house. He’d tossed it at him casually, watching the way the slim boy fumbled it a few times before kicking it to try and keep it from hitting the unfinished floor. Kyle was starting to get taller, shins aching and skin going oily over his forehead. “You stink.”

Alex made a face, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out at Kyle before uncapping it with a thick pop. “You’re not the one who has to stand upwind from you,” he replied, sniffing delicately.

Kyle snagged the hammer from where he’d dropped it and a few cans of root beer, the bags of Cheetos, and sour cream and onion Pringles for Alex. “We’re both stuck here, my dude,” he reminded, looking around before picking up the next bit of plywood and hefting it into place. He knew Alex was watching him. Alex was always watching him lately and he tried not to preen, to flex the burgeoning muscle before tapping the nails into place. He heard the pop of the Pringles can behind him, the scent sharp before the breeze took that away too. It was almost fully summer and they’d been sweating in the small wooden box they were building in the old cottonwood that was leaning against the edge of the creek on his Dad’s property out near the hunting cabin.

He and Alex had been friends from what seemed like birth- the smaller boy always next to him as they watched their Dad’s talk shoulder to shoulder at the barbecues. He’d been there when Alex had broken his wrist falling off his bike after trying the ramp his brother Hunter had set up. He’d cried more than Alex, something Alex never let him forget.

They were both down to just their shorts, panting a little as the afternoon dragged on, but enjoying the breeze that flicked it’s wrist over the mesa and pulled the smoke rich scent of sun warm mesquite with it. Alex was lithe, littler than he was, but unconsciously ripped. He breathed, whippet strong and wiry and Kyle found himself watching the way the other boy’s back moved, golden skin and the shine of sweat. “Harlan just graduated the Academy,” Alex said after awhile, licking the pringles from the corner of his mouth.

“Cool,” Kyle responded. “Your Dad must be happy.”

Alex frowned, looking down before reaching around him to pluck the hacksaw from the floor. The treehouse wasn’t big, but there was enough room for two sleeping bags side by side and a small balcony that would eventually drop a rope ladder. The trunk of the tree tilting from near the west corner through the center of the room to pop through the hole they’d built for the roof. The thing would leak constantly in monsoon season, but it was theirs. “He’s talking about Flint now, what Flint is going to do to be the next Mane’s man.”

Kyle glanced over, watching the way Alex was sawing at the future window on the south side, shoulders tight and strokes vicious. “He trying for the trifecta?”

“He wants all of us to go.” Alex shrugged and kept sawing, jaw going hard. The other boy was starting to get quieter, something frayed around the edges this year. “I want to make music.” Alex glanced over, like he was trusting Kyle with a secret. “Like, I want to write and sing and shit. Be in a band, go on tour.”

“Groupies,” Kyle smiled wide and lewd, waggling his eyebrows at Alex. “Bang some ladies, Manes!”

“Gross,” Alex rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, that crooked one he handed out to his friends, bright and open.

Kyle reached out before he knew what he was doing to press a hand to his shoulder, shoving him lightly before tangling him into a headlock. “Girls! Sex! Blowjobs!” He laughed wildly, enjoying the way Alex squirmed, trying to duck out from under his arm and instead just pressing back against him. “Pussy!”

“Oh my god!” Alex finally went limp, shaking his head and covering his face with both hands. “You are so gross. So gross. Who says that? Kyle. Kyle says that.”

“Seriously, though,” Kyle loosened his hold, turning it sideways to drape a heavy arm over Alex’s shoulders. “That’s really cool, man. I hope you do it.”

Alex glanced over at him, face flushed and skin splotchy with red marks from Kyle’s rough housing. “Thanks,” he said finally, wetting his lips and just holding the gaze. Alex did this, sometimes. He held a look longer than was normal and Kyle swallowed, lost in it for a second. He got stuck there, eyes locked and he knew the exact moment Alex’s eyes flickered down to his mouth and then back up, face shuttering and going closed off so quickly Kyle didn’t have time to blink. “Now get off me, it’s fucking hot.” He shoved at Kyle, hands slipping a little on slick skin before ducking out to sit on the edge of the tree house, dangling his legs and leaning back on his palms.

Kyle let him go, the air unclear and the twist in his chest murky. The next day Manes had smelled like Old Spice.

They didn’t talk about that summer. They didn’t talk about the summer between middle school and Freshman year. They didn’t talk about the day Alex had shown up to the tree house with a black eye and a newly stitched scar on his forehead. They didn’t talk about it, but Kyle had listened to Alex cry in the dark, fist in his mouth as he sobbed. Kyle knew he was a coward. Kyle just let him cry.

They didn’t talk about that summer. They didn’t talk about the endless week they’d slept in the tree house, working through the night and watching the shooting stars shoulder to shoulder. They didn’t talk about the night Alex had woken up and just pulled Kyle’s legs into his lap to rub and squeeze with firm hands at the ache in his shins that kept him awake, over tired and restlessly pained.

They didn’t talk about the sound of a hand under the nylon, the soft rushing sounds of wrist against fabric. They didn’t talk about the way someone’s breath would catch in the dark, going painfully silent- listening- before exhaling a rough uneven breath. They didn’t talk about how they both knew what the other’s come smelled like.

Kyle felt Alex’s eyes on him as they shouldered into that summer. He felt the way the other boy retreated, going quiet and simmering angry. He felt Alex’s gaze like a physical touch and he didn’t know what to do with the weight of it. He didn’t know what to do with all the things they weren’t talking about anymore.

“I’m glad we’re talking again,” Kyle said, wetting his lips and tilting his head back against the cement wall. “Even if it took an Alien Death squad and Military action to make it happen.”

“You are so fucking sappy,” Alex replied, voice a warm burr. He’d grown up. He’d grown strong. He wasn’t the slim wiry teenager that Kyle remembered, but they were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the coming dark again. “Gonna hold my hand next?”

“Well, since you asked,” Kyle replied, reaching over and startling at the bright laugh Alex gave as he slapped at his wrist.

“Fucker.”

Kyle shook his head, ducking his chin before turning to look at the cell door again. “He’s going to have to let us out sometime.”

“Harlan was always Dad’s favorite. Flint just follows orders.”

“Was it as bad as-”

“Worse,” Alex shrugged and Kyle felt it in the press of shoulders. He nodded, swallowing around the knot in his throat.

“I realized it during my Residency.” He said finally. “What was really happening to you. I didn’t-” He pauses, shaking his head when Alex starts to interrupt. “No, let me finish.” He wet his lips, glaring at the floor just in front of the tips of his shoes, twisting his fingers together and listening to the crack of one joint. “My Dad didn’t always come home at night. I mean, sometimes he was so drunk he fell asleep in the front yard. I thought it was something like that when we were kids. I thought you were as embarrassed as I was. I thought maybe your Mom left because she’d finally had enough of your Dad’s bullshit. I always wished my Mom had and now it’s like I’m glad she didn’t? But I mean, I remember there was this kid, right? He was maybe eleven and fuck man, that’s a hell of a lot younger now than it ever seemed then. Kids, Alex, fucking *kids*.”

The Prison sat empty, yawning and gaping with broken out windows and detritus littered hallways. They linoleum was peeling up at the edges in some places, cracking at others. It was a broken shell of a thing, full of pain and old ghosts. It hunkered in the desert sand like a rattlesnake, languid and deadly. Kyle had hated it the moment he saw it. He hated that they’d stood in front of it, just the two of them against a wall of ghosts and secrets. He’d wanted back up. He’d wanted something more than a backpack and an iPad.

“This kid had a dislocated shoulder, a fractured collarbone, and two cracked ribs.” He nodded once, blowing out a breath and holding the next words on his tongue carefully, brows drawn tight. “Just like you.”

Alex looked away sharply, staring at the opposite wall and taking a deep breath that he shuddered through the exhale. He nodded once and looked back at Kyle, eyes steady in the dim. He held it a beat too long and Kyle was fighting against the way his chest went tight, twisted and angry- angry at the kid he’d been. The kid who had picked at the edges of where Alex was unraveling for fun. The kid who had taunted him, who had thrown what they didn’t talk about back at him like a punch. The kid who saw someone in pain and made them *different*. The kid who fear made him. “I almost decked his Dad,” he finished. “I didn’t expect to get that angry, but it just broke something I’d been holding on to, and my Charge Nurse had to hold me back.” He blinked, rolling his eyes. “She’s still the strongest person I’ve ever met or I really need to rethink my perception of self.” He shrugged.

“They taught us what to look for. They taught us to call Child Services. They taught us to do the things that I already *knew* how to do. I was just fucking jealous, Alex and it’s fucking stupid and I’m still embarrassed and ashamed of it. But I was jealous of the way my Dad was so willing to take care of everyone around us but me. I was mad that he had to fix everything but our family. I was fucking *pissed* and stupid and-”

Alex reached over and just closed his hand around where Kyle’s knuckles were going white. “Stop.” It was a command, not a suggestion and Kyle’s mouth snapped shut, muscle in his jaw working.

Alex nodded and sat quietly for a moment. “You were the first person I ever wanted to kiss.”

Kyle coughed, blinking and taking his hand back, swiping at his face with a shocked smile. “Cause I’m hot.”

“Because you’re hot.” He paused. “And dumb as shit about a lot of things.”

“Fucking hell, Manes.”

Alex turned, wetting his lips and flipping those damn eyebrows at him. “No confessionals, please. It sounds like you think we’re going to die here.”

“Well-”

“We’re too pretty to die.” And just like that Alex was smiling, using Kyle’s knee to push to his feet, head cocked as he listened. “Something’s happening.”

“Fucking about time,” Kyle managed, following and trying not to be both offended and pleased by the way Alex held an arm out to keep him behind him. There was a wild tearing sound, metal moving somewhere behind the door- tearing like paper with a disharmonic rip. Kyle took a half step back at the gunshots and the cut off scream. Five bullets, five sharp noises that he flinched from when Alex only tensed, hands shaking slightly before he took a half step forward. There was a loud crash, something explosive and shattering. Then silence.

That silences stretched into the spaces between Kyle’s breaths. It stretched and pulled like taffy, tense and he could feel the anxiety clawing into his lungs and ripping up his throat like a barely held shout. The silence thick, charged and he was staring so hard at the closed doors past where Alex was moving forward that he almost missed the soft sound of the knob turning, the lock clicking without being touched.

“Now this is a fucking horror movie,” Kyle muttered.

The door slammed open and Flint Manes stood there, backlit by a flickering firelight behind him. Kyle heard the soft broken little inhaled, “No,” Alex made as his hands pulled up to cross in front of his mouth. Flint dropped like a bag of bricks, rumpling to the floor to reveal a viciously angry Michael Guerin- jaw hard and eyes wild as he stopped hard just inside the door, eyes locked with Alex. He wasn’t even breathing hard, just a live wire sort of tense that seemed to radiate off of his shoulders, his thighs as he stepped over where he’d dropped Flint to where Alex was moving in tandem. “Alex!”

There was a moment, both of them watching the other like nothing else mattered, fingers hooked into the chain link as they just stared. Kyle looked away, like seeing something intimate, like seeing the way Alex’s face went soft and hopeful. Michael was breathing hard now, just nodding a little as they seemed to simply slip into the lack of words and open. “You okay?”

“Dusty, tired.” Alex wet his lips and Kyle rolled his eyes.

“This is nice and all,” he started, gesturing between them. “But could we maybe do the whole you almost died thing after you let us out with your Alien Brain Powers?”

“You brought *that* guy?” Michael turned a black glare on where Kyle was standing.

“Hey, stop,” Alex shook his head. “It’s-”

“Complicated?” Michael finished. Kyle felt himself blink at the way the walls went up visibly between the two men, shuttered and locking down even as the lock on the cage clattered open and the door swung out with a rusty shriek. Alex’s mouth thinned and Michael looked away, eyes down as his jaw worked. “Whatever.”

Kyle had only a moment to think that maybe talking to Michael was a war before Alex had slipped out of the cage and Michael was glaring at him. “Guerin.”

“Valenti.”

“Denim on denim,” Kyle muttered, slipping into old habits. “Classic.”

“Oh fuck off,” Michael muttered, only turning when Alex called his name.

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, I'm on [Tumblr ](http://irolltwenties.tumblr.com) if you want to come flail with me.


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